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“Oliver (@foreverfallers), cosplaying as Vax’ildan from Vox Machina. For Oliver, masking is an act of community care. As Dr. @Akiko__Iwasaki shared with the New York Times, every single viral wave is followed by a predictable wave of new-onset Long COVlD. Letting our guard down is like playing Russian Roulette—no one is immune.” Photo courtesy Mask Together America.

PHAN Weekly Newsletter for October 23, 2026

Greetings, public health PHANs! We hope you're having a safe and healthy October. 

 

October is Indoor Air Quality Awareness Month! We spend approximately 90% of our time indoors, yet the quality of the air we breathe inside our homes, schools, workplaces, and shared spaces often receives far less attention than outdoor air pollution. Indoor air can contain fine particulate matter (PM2.5), allergens, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and airborne pathogens, all of which can affect our health. The good news? Cleaner indoor air is achievable. Through improved ventilation, effective filtration, source control, and evidence-based air-cleaning technologies, we can reduce exposure to harmful pollutants and infectious aerosols. But clean indoor air shouldn’t and cannot be an individual responsibility. It requires collective action, informed policies, and investments in healthier buildings. 

 

New in this issue:

If you have news or events that would be pertinent to our newsletter, or feedback on the newsletter or PHAN's work, email us at info@phan.global. We would love to hear your thoughts!

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Join us and our friends at Air Support Project on November 12 at noon ET as we delve into the topic of indoor air quality (IAQ) and preventing illness with kids in schools. We'll talk about how air quality is currently being measured in schools in various districts and countries, what standards for IAQ or monitoring exist, and what parents and concerned citizens can do to improve the air in their children's or their communities' schools. Our guests will include Mary Jo Nabuurs, an advocate for clean air in schools in Ontario, Canada, and Ruth Brooker, founder of Clean Air for Kids UK. Register in advance. 

 

We'll also host a Zoom discussion on November 19 about death and Long COVID with The Sick Times co-founder Miles Griffis. More details to follow but you can register in advance now.

New Podcast Episode: Lindsay Briggs, Professor of Public Health at Chico State University, California

We're delighted to present our sixth podcast episode, with guest Lindsay Briggs, PhD, a tenured faculty member in the Department of Public Health (PBHL) at California State University, Chico. Dr. Briggs graduated from Indiana University’s School of Public Health in 2011 and holds both a PhD in Health Behavior and an MPH with a concentration in Behavioral Health. She has pursued feminism, equity, and social justice her entire life and is passionate about working across disciplines to promote social justice in the field of public health. 

 

Dr. Briggs has been masking in her classes since the beginning of the pandemic and is one of the few instructors still consistently masking on campus. Her dissertation research focused on the social response to HIV/AIDS, and she discussed several similarities that she's seeing between her research work and the current pandemic. We were thrilled to be able to speak with her and are confident you will enjoy the recording, available on YouTube and Spotify.

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The Safer Air Project will host the Safer Shared Air: Indoor Air, Health & Productivity Conference, to be held in Canberra, Australia, in-person and online on October 28 / October 27 (Americas). Online attendance for community members is being offered for free, and registration for online attendance is available until the day of the event. The conference will be recorded and a link to the recording will be sent to everyone who registered. 

 

The full-day conference will include over a dozen public health and policy experts, as well as representatives from the Australian government, who will speak on indoor air quality as a silent driver of chronic disease; the economic opportunities that exist; and how we can translate the evidence into world-leading, national reform.

 

PHAN is proud to be a gold-level sponsor for this conference and we encourage everyone who is interested in clean air to attend in person or online. We believe that the work being done by Safer Air Project in Australia can be replicated and adapted for other countries.

Thanks to a generous donation from Far UVC Technologies, the Chicago Clean Air Resilience Network (Chi-CARN) now has three Far UVC torches available to borrow. Far-UVC is a form of germicidal ultraviolet light, typically operating at 222 nm, that can inactivate airborne pathogens. When properly designed and operated within established exposure limits, it can be used in occupied spaces. Combined with air filtration and ventilation, Far-UVC offers an additional layer of protection against airborne viruses, including those that cause COVID-19, influenza, and RSV. These units, the Krypton Shield and Legacy Guard, are portable mounted units that sit approximately nine feet off the ground, sanitizing the air around them.

As respiratory virus season begins and COVID-19 and influenza activity rises, we encourage organizations in the Chicago area to incorporate Chi-CARN’s Far-UVC lights into their fall and winter events as an additional layer of protection against airborne transmission, helping create safer, more accessible shared spaces.

 

Chicago Clean Air Resilience Network is a coordinated, multi-partner initiative co-founded with PHAN, Air Support Project, SOS, and Windy City Toolbank, four 501c3 nonprofits who united around the mission of not letting bad air get in the way of good work.

Many thanks to Far UVC Technologies for donating these units and helping to support our work!

PHAN contributor Amanda Finley has been dealing with Long COVID since 2020 and has had to learn how to live differently. In this post she explores what it's like to have to leave your old life behind and face a new challenging reality, one where there aren't always answers to all the questions about the illness that's depleted all your energy and continues to create new symptoms.

 

If you have suggestions for blog post topics or contributors, please send them our way at info@phan.global.

We're excited to share that PHAN will be at FOSDEM in Brussels on January 30 and 31, 2027. We're joining a cohort of organizations leading the first-ever developer room for Open Source Healthcare, a dedicated track for people building open tools that improve care. Developer rooms are assigned to self-organizing groups to work together on open source and free software projects, to discuss topics relevant to a broader subset of the community, etc. More details are coming soon. Many thanks to friend-of-PHAN Addie Cobb, leader of the Open Source Program Office at Varro Life Sciences, for her dedication and effort in getting this devroom set up.

 

In the meantime, if you believe in open source the way we do and have a healthcare tool you'd like to share, we encourage you to submit a talk proposal when the call for proposals opens in the coming weeks.

You can learn more about FOSDEM on their website. We'll share the devroom details and the submission link as soon as they're out. We hope to see you there!

The Pandemic Mitigation Collaborative (PMC) creates a weekly COVID-19 “heatmap” based on CDC wastewater data and levels (U.S.). The PMC is led by Michael Hoerger, PhD, MSCR, MBA.

October 17, 2026: From the Pandemic Mitigation Collaborative: 

“PMC COVlD Update, Oct 17, 2026 (U.S.) Early Release COVlD levels have rebounded into a secondary peak, as the CDC continues to retroactively correct levels upward. Outbreaks span 44 states. Levels are falling in TX, still high out west, & up in the Northeast."

Read Dr. Hoerger's full report or follow him on Bluesky and Instagram for the latest news.
 

 

October 17, 2026: From the Survivor Literacy blog: The long tail of the COVID pandemic is being felt in far more areas of our society than is commonly acknowledged, from people's nervous systems to the trauma that children have experienced, family relationships and structures, workplaces, schools, the healthcare system, and the cultural narrative of "getting back to normalcy". 

 

October 19, 2026: From the New York Times: How Bad is Another Case of COVID. “A number of studies have shown that each time someone contracts COVID introduces an opportunity to develop long-term symptoms. Researchers often compare it to Russian roulette: Any infection could be the one that leads to long COVID.”

 

October 19, 2026: From the producers of "What Doesn’t Kill You", a documentary about ME/CFS and long COVID, are looking for people willing to contribute their experiences. 

 

October 20, 2026: From entrepreneur and mask advocate Zhou Liang: his company is developing a new modular-type mask.

 

October 20, 2026: From the Pennsylvania Department of Health: A new health alert warns doctors about congenital measles, a disease that was once extremely rare in the United States. Dozens of pregnant Pennsylvania women have contracted measles in the state’s ongoing outbreak.

 

October 22, 2026: From Science Direct: A simplified method for evaluating fine particulate matter removal performance of portable air cleaners. 

 

October 23, 2026: From KMVT,com: Idaho reports its first flu-related death of the season. 

 

Graphic from PMC based on a chart from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics

 

Clean Air Club of Chicago posts COVID-safer events to their Instagram page approximately twice a month.

We're excited about all the mask-required events for Halloween we've seen on social media. If you have a mask-required event you'd like us to include in the newsletter, tag us on whatever platform you're on, or email us at info@phan.global.

Every week theater journalist Charles Lewis III publishes a comprehensive list of COVID-safe events and performances in the San Francisco Bay Area on his Patreon.

 

San Francisco Transgender Film Fest, November 12-14. Attendance will be both online and in-person, with the latter audiences required to be masked with KN95 (masks provided by staff).

 

Last Saturday of every month in the SF Bay Area: Masked Hangout. Once a month, airborne-aware folks in the South Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area meet at 15980 Blossom Hill Rd in Los Gatos for games, puzzles, coloring, and socializing. Email SouthBayMaskedEvents@gmail.com for details and to be added to the mailing list.

 

Monthly in San Francisco: Infinite Wrench. SF Neo-Futurists hosts Infinite Wrench mask-required performances on the first Saturday of each month. Infinite Wrench is a set of 30 plays in 60 minutes, new plays every week. While audience members will be required to stay masked throughout the show, performers may invite select audience members to unmask for plays that involve audience participation. All performers test weekly for COVID-19 and extra masks will be available for those who need them. Upcoming masked show on November 7.

 

NEW! October 24 & 25: Nosferatu (1922) screening and COVID conscious comic commentary, with an introductory talk about Nosferatu, Spanish flu, vampires and public health. Produced and hosted by Inspire Performing Arts Collective By and For the Airborne Aware. Saturday October 24 7 pm ET and Sunday October 25 2 pm ET. The event is free on Zoom. Feel free to participate in the chat with other COVID conscious folks.

Tickets for Saturday, October 24 showing at 7pm ET/5pm CT/4pm PT: 
Tickets for Sunday, October 25 showing at 2pm ET/1pm CT/11am PT

 

Streaming online through November 28, 2026: Hystericalfest: women+ ACT out.

A series of short comedies on Women+ & Invisible Disabilities. Tickets available with a suggested donation of $10. With ASL and closed captioning options. Produced by Violet Surprise Theatre, Terri Lynne Hudson (consulting), & Hysterical Productions/Paula Kamen. This is a recording of a live performance that ran Friday, August 28, 2026.

 

Weekly online open-mic events with Nina Wildflower: Ben Collins, who performs as Nina Wildflower, hosts a weekly online open mic for COVID-informed performers, via the Facebook group "Still Coviding - Virtual Meetups" (private group, apply for membership). Sign up for weekly emails at ninawildflower@yahoo.com.

 

One Click Events will host an online “Illuminate” event to let folks make romantic connections

Monthly online meetings from One Click Events for virus-informed folks. Meetings include Silent Reading and Social Hour, Game Night, Soft Launch social hours, and Movie Club. 

 

They'll host a special event: “Illuminate: Where Sparks Fly”, on November 7, 2026, 1:00-4:00 Central Time (Chicago). Illuminate is a free, virtual space for COVID-aware folks ages 18+ who are interested in making romantic connections, whatever that means to you. Whether you’re interested in dating for fun, looking for a serious relationship, monogamy, polyamory or something in between - we encourage you to form meaningful connections. You will need to complete a profile by October 26 to participate.

 

The World Health Network hosts COVID-aware community meetings every day. Community care starts with conversation! Their Welcome page explains how to connect with their meeting groups.

 

Every Monday & Sunday: Rising Hope meetings on Zoom

Rising Hope is a community of COVID-conscious supporters that meet Monday evenings, plus Sunday mornings for church services. Contact them via Reddit.

 

WHN hosts weekly Zoom “Kids' Connect Zone” meetings on Tuesdays and Sundays for kids, teens, and families who want to connect through COVID-conscious activities, games, and discussions. Find out more at the WHN website.
 

Join Celebrate845 on Zoom for COVID Creative Coalition community meetings on Saturdays at 11AM ET. No artistic experience required. More info at Celebrate845.com/COVIDCreativeCoalition. 

 

Every Saturday: Pandemic Pals meetings on Zoom

Every Saturday at 5 pm PT/8 pm ET, the Pandemic Collaborative hosts a Zoom call with several breakout rooms based on age groups, life situations, and special interests. Check their Google Document the day of the call for that week's Zoom link.

 

The organizers at The Little Zoom Writers Room host a weekly co-writing space open to all COVID realists. Check their welcome page for more info or their account on Instagram.

 

The COVID-Safe Art Collective holds an online gathering every Sunday at 2:30pm PT / 4:30pm CT / 5:30pm ET until 4pm PT / 6pm CT / 8pm ET for COVID-safe adults to create art or just chat and be with other aware people. Check their Linktree for the current Zoom link.

 

Molly was a professional actor and clown for 30 years in Chicago, and has had fellowships as well as guest lecture and teaching artist positions all over the country. She hosts an in-person and remote class once a month about how to create theatrical performances in a respirator. Sign up for her mailing list to get the remote link.

on the lighter side…

Credit: The Vertlartnic

Volunteer for PHAN

If you're interested in volunteering, we'd love to have you! We're looking for people interested in:

If you match any of those needs, or you have other skills or experience that you think might help our work, we'll find a way for you to help! Fill out our contact form on our website and one of us will get back to you as soon as we can.

 

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